About Us
Mission Statement
Rules of Conduct
 
Name:
Pswd:
Remember Me
Register
 

Common Wisdom
Author: BobR    Date: 08/04/2010 12:41:04

I am sure every one has received them - the angry email spouting something that seems like it could be true. It lists off "facts", and urges you to pass the information along to everyone you know (usually a quick trip to Snopes.com will provide truth and context). It is in fact, a chain letter, something I am old enough to remember getting in the actual mail. The most recent one I got made claims about Congress not paying into Social Security, and getting the same pay for life, even if they only serve on term. Of course, none of that is true.

However, chain letters aren't the only places where bad information is spread, masquerading as truth. It happens all the time in Congress and in the media. Here are some examples of "common wisdom" that aren't:

The Bush tax cuts will stimulate the economy: Actually, extending them is a very poor way to stimulate the economy:
The government could more effectively stimulate the economy by letting the high-income tax cuts expire and using the money for aid to the states, extensions of unemployment insurance benefits and tax credits favoring job creation. Dollar for dollar, each of these measures would have about three times the impact on GDP as continuing the Bush tax cuts.

Allowing the high-income tax cuts to expire would hurt small businesses: From the same article:
Less than 2 percent of tax returns reporting small-business income are filed by taxpayers in the top two income brackets -- individuals earning more than about $170,000 a year and families earning more than about $210,000 a year.

And just as most small businesses aren't owned by people in the top income brackets, most people in the top income brackets don't rely mainly on small-business income

President Obama has broken most of his campaign promises: In truth, he has kept 6x as many as he has broken. Most of the promises are "in the works" or being held up by Congress:
Promises Kept: 120
Compromise: 38
Broken: 20
Stalled: 81
In the Works: 243

Illegal immigrants can get educational assistance: certain legal immigrants and guest properly documented guests can, but not those here illegally. There are plenty of other mis-truths that circulate about immigrants as well.

The Bush years were good to "average Joes", financially: Does anyone seriously believe that? Look at these charts and tell me the Bush years were good to the middle class. Of course, things have been trending that way for a while, but Bush made things worse, not better.
http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4bbcabdd7f8b9a0b26b30600-400-300/if-you-arent-in-the-top-1-then-youre-getting-a-bum-deal.jpg


President Obama has done nothing to help the economy: No, the economy has not rebounded as quickly nor as completely as we would all like. Had he done nothing, though, it could have been much worse. However, it HAS rebounded as Wall Street activity would indicate, not to mention jobs increases:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4072/4668683929_77773d55ff.jpg


Republicans are better at budgets and/or managing spending than Democrats: Of course that's not true. The only president in recent history to actually spend less than the taxes taken in was President Clinton. When Bush took over the presidency, he called it stealing from the taxpayers and vowed to reverse it. Boy, did he ever. His tenure saw a budget busting set of tax cuts, combined with a spending increases that were more than the six presidents preceding him:
During his eight years in office, President Bush oversaw a large increase in government spending. In fact, President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent.

During his eight years in office, President Bush spent almost twice as much as his predecessor, President Clinton. Adjusted for inflation, in eight years, President Clinton increased the federal budget by 11 percent. In eight years, President Bush increased it by a whopping 104 percent.

So the next time some email arrives or some politician pontificates, or some pundit's prolixity is full of "truthiness", one should always pause and seek out the truth from other venues, especially when it's something that you want to believe. Common wisdom seldom is.

 

41 comments (Latest Comment: 08/05/2010 00:56:27 by livingonli)
   Perma Link

Share This!

Furl it!
Spurl
NewsVine
Reddit
Technorati